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Think-alouds are a strategy that I learned from this class that I plan to utilize throughout my teaching career. I saw the power that this strategy has during my fieldwork where I used it to model how I approached related rates problems in Calculus. These problems are notoriously difficult because they do not have a one size fits all solution. In order to solve these problems, students have to think critically and come up with ways to tie together seemingly unrelated variables. Showing how I approach these problems through the think-aloud was extremely beneficial for my student as he could see exactly what questions I asked myself when reading the problems, what information I pulled from the problem, and why this information is important.

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As my initial score on my 1st lesson plan can attest to, my initial understanding of what literacy objectives are was lacking. I thought that all I had to do was copy the format of a content objective, but change the math goal to a literacy goal. I have since learned that literacy objectives differ from content objectives in that they describe how students will show their content knowledge. Therefore, I had to scrap the “will be able to” part of my language objectives.

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A baby picture to symbolize my inexperience and lack of knowledge of what literacy was at the beginning of the course.

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I remember one of the first activities we did in this course was an editable powerpoint where we answered questions about what literacy was.  Going in, I thought of literacy as a synonym for reading. Therefore, my answers to the questions were all centered on reading and reading comprehension. I did not know about all of the aspects that literacy encompassed like speaking and writing.

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A deck of cards representing a fund of knowledge of mine: poker.

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One of the concepts from this class that I intend to incorporate into my teaching is the integration of students’ funds of knowledge. During the funds of knowledge presentations, I was amazed at the diverse collection of funds that the class possessed. I agree with Brozo that “secondary teachers should be ever mindful of ways to capitalize on youths’ outside-of-school literacies as bridges to academic, disciplinary text reading and learning” (Brozo, 2017, pg. 73). During my tutoring fieldwork, I utilized my student’s fund of knowledge of his home country’s history to help him understand certain aspects of American culture.

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A math proof from my undergraduate studies.

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At the beginning of the course, I was a bit skeptical about the need for integrating literacy into a math class. I had thoughts like isn’t that what English class is for? A point that Brozo made that helped shift my mindset is that ”every new text and reading situation requires a refined application of literacy skills and abilities. This is especially  true of content-area and disciplinary literacy” (2017, pg. 76). This got me thinking about the differences between reading and understanding a complicated math proof versus reading something like The Great Gatsby. While both actions are reading, the skills needed to fully understand each are entirely different.